Main menu

Post navigation

The Proposal

I just learned 10 seconds ago that today is National Proposal Day. The only one of these types of days I have celebrated before is National Nacho Day and it was glorious, so why not celebrate today with the story of how Joey and I came to be engaged.

When you’re with someone for as long as Joey and I have been together, you have (or if you haven’t, you should be having) several conversations about the future and what both of you want. We both wanted to marry each other but understood that we would be paying for a vast majority of everything ourselves, meaning that a wedding would have to wait. A lot of people would ask us when we were going to get married and what we were waiting for. I didn’t really think it was anyone’s business but people just looove to be busy bodies. Though we have been together for so many years people should really take into consideration that we started dating in high school. There is no way I would have been ready to get married when I was 21. At the time I thought I was good to go but I am so thankful that we waited until now. I just don’t understand the rush? There’s no reason for it. I’d rather learn about living with someone, weather all kinds of hardships and understand what marriage is going to be like before signing up for life.

Because of the nature of our relationship, an engagement was not going to be a surprise. I found a ring online years ago that spoke to me. We went to a jeweler in 2012 and tried it on and I was really disappointed when the band didn’t look right on my hand. It was way too delicate and you couldn’t even tell there were diamonds on the sides because they were so tiny. I didn’t hear anything more about it for another year.

In May 2013 we went to the Virgin Islands for our 11 year anniversary. I felt pretty confident that Joey was going to propose on our anniversary, but throughout the entire trip he acted completely normal, so I started to think that maybe I was mistaken.

The day before our anniversary, we visited Coral World in St. Thomas, where we got to go into a pool with 200lb rescued sea turtles (Joey’s favorite animal), pet them and learned all about their stories.

After that we went to the seriously beautiful Coki beach next door and snorkeled for a few hours. It was a really fun day.

We ended the night with a late dinner at Old Stone Farmhouse, which is exactly what it sounds like, on top of a mountain. The restaurant has no doors so once in a while you get a nice breeze from outside. (http://oldstonefarmhouse.com/) It’s a fancy restaurant where you can go in the kitchen and see the chef preparing food. In the kitchen the walls are filled with couples’ names.

We took a couple of photos inside, and then the waiter asked if we wanted to take any photos in their courtyard. I was like “no that’s okay,” but Joey said “Yeah let’s take some more pictures!” I was thinking to myself, why does he care about pictures in the courtyard? The waiter took one photo, then Joey said “the next one better be a good one” and got down on one knee and proposed.

I was seriously shocked. I had not been bracing myself for a proposal the day before our anniversary! No matter how long you have been dating and whether or not you are expecting it, you cannot prepare yourself for a marriage proposal. It is a very overwhelming feeling.

Joey had the ring custom made to be exactly how I wanted it. I couldn’t stop staring at it for the next two days.

Calling/texting everyone from the islands proved to be really exhausting! I suggest getting everyone together and announcing it rather than go through every person you want to tell individually.

I wonder if people thought we were never going to get married at all. I sometimes considered the option because I love my life the way it is, but I know that if we decided to stay together without ever getting married that something would be missing.

So that’s our perfect proposal story, and that’s as sappy as I’m ever going to get.